Heroes

It’s upfront week — the time when networks unveil their new shows — and say good-bye to a few old ones.

First out of the gate is NBC, which confirmed that, yes, “Heroes” is dead. Earlier in the week, NBC dumped venerable crime show “Law & Order,” but picked up the latest entry in the franchise — “Law & Order: Los Angeles,” which will air directly after “Law & Order: SVU” on Wednesday nights.

In a drastic change from last fall’s shunning of scripted shows (to make room for the failed Jay Leno experiment at 10), NBC ordered seven scrtipted dramas for fall, including a legal series starring Jimmy Smits and a crime procedural from Jerry Bruckheimer.

Of course, pimping out fatalities as a ploy to pull in viewers is nothing new, but during May sweeps the body count always dramatically rises. EW.com has even posted a death chart that projects the number of fatalities for various dramas.

But how much TV detah is too much? And when do we become numb to it all? In this morning’s newspapers I’ve got a column on TV’s obsession with death. I hope you check it out and let me know your take.

“Friday Night Lights” will finally return to NBC on Jan. 16. That’s great news — unless you’ve already been catching the season on DirecTV (and it has been a stellar season).

Otherwise, NBC doesn’t look to have a lot of scintillating content planned for when the new year hits — not that that’s much different from now. “Chuck” and “Heroes” will be taking the month off. The “Life” time slot will be filled with “Law & Order: SVU” reruns. And “Lipstick Jungle,” again, looks to be a goner.

Hogging the spotlight will be a lot of reality programming. There’s an international dance competition called “Superstars of Dance” (Jan. 4), and a show produced by Ryan Seacrest called “Momma’s Boys” (Jan. 5), which has mothers helping sons pick their mates. And Howie Mandel will head a series called “Howie Do It” (Jan. 9), in which he plays pranks on people. Oh goody.

And let’s not forget a new edition of “The Biggest Loser” (Jan., 6), which could also describe NBC’s fate in the Nielsen race.

There’s also a miniseries in the works: ” “The Last Templar” (Jan. 25 and 26).

The best news for struggling NBC? They’ve got the Super Bowl on Feb. 1.

Seems that right around this time last year I was writing a column about how “Heroes” was screwing up its second season and quickly losing its megahit mojo.

And now, after getting a long strike-prompted break to reassess and regroup, it appears “Heroes” is blowing it again. Ratings are down and criticism is up and you’ve got to wonder how many chances does this show get (or deserve).

Anyway, I’ve basically stopped watching in recent weeks, but the people at Entertainment Weekly have been monitoring the situation and they’ve offered a five-point plan to help “Heroes” get its powers back:

See if you agree. here you go:

Problem 1: Too Many HeroesSolution: Retire Some Capes
With a sprawling cast, “Heroes” has many story lines to feed â€“ and not enough time to nourish all of them. Itâ€™s time to start trimming the fat by either killing some top-tier Heroes or giving one or two a permanent happy ending. Then shore up the audienceâ€™s emotional investment with the showâ€™s favorites by adding more single-character episodes like â€œCompany Man,â€ the season 1 classic that focused almost exclusively on H.R.G. (Jack Coleman).Continue Reading →

As John McCain and Barack Obama race for the White House, the folks at AOL Television have come up with a fun little politically charged feature. They’re listing the most memorable TV politicans of all time.

We used to run what we called a “Weekly Wrap” on this here blog, where we’d encourage readers to comment on what they considered to be the best television of the past few days. Well, TVGuide.com has started running a list of the Top 8 TV Moments of the week. I don’t know why it’s eight and not 10 or 12, but it’s a nice concise way to highlight some of the week’s fun programming and something I might want to try.

On Monday night, the new TV season kicked off in earnest with a lot of premieres (“Heroes,” “Dancing With the Stars,” etc.) and a lot of laughs from the CBS comedy block (So good to see the return of “The Big Bang Theory.”)

Some tough choices there, but my favortite of the night was “How I Met Your Mother.” Absolutely loved the opener that had Josh Radnor’s Ted (along with Marshall) judging Stella’s (Sarah Chalke) worthiness as a potential wife by seeing how she reacted to “Star Wars,” a movie Ted is so passionately wedded to, but one that Stella has never seen.

Judging from all the love “Survivor” gets among my co-workers, I should have known this already about the epic reality show: The fans who watch it really, REALLY love it.

That has been confirmed in a new study conducted by Marketing Evaluations Inc., the Q Scores Co. According to these guys, among all the fall TV shows, “Survivor” has the most “emotionally attached” 18-to-49 viewers. (We’re talking fall shows, so “Lost” and “24” were not included).

Emmys, schmemmys. The people over at TevisionWithoutPity.com have come up with their own cast of award winners. They call ’em the Tubey Awards and they acknowledge the best, worst, most improved and just plain weird characters, series, moments and more from the 2007-2008 television season.